Stealthy London Startup Curve Raises $2M From Notable Fintech Backers

Stealthy London-based fintech startup Curve has closed a $2 million seed round from a rather notable list of early backers.

They comprise a number of individual investors with some serious fintech chops, including Taavet Hinrikus, who co-founded money transfer startup and reported ‘unicorn’ TransferWise, Ricky Knox of challenger bank Tandem, in addition to Ed Wray of Betfair and former members of the Google Wallet team.

Three VCs also joined the round: Speedinvest (led by Stefan Klestil), pre-seed/seed investor Seedcamp (led by Reshma Sohoni), and the Mayor of London’s London Co-Investment Fund. The capital sets up Curve in preparation for a full launch early next year.

Meanwhile, the startup — which is currently running in a closed beta (although a limited number of TechCrunch readers can jump the line) — isn’t saying publicly what its product does, except that Curve aims to become the single touchpoint between you and your money, and in turn give you more control over your everyday finances.

My understanding is that this translates into a product that broadly plays in the payments and loyalty space and combines the benefits of mobile payment solutions, such as Apple Pay, and the traditional bank card.

In that sense, we can probably expect a better UI/UX in terms of how you track and account for your own spending, underpinned by some interesting fintech, and then various additional features afforded by bringing greater transparency to your spending data.

Interestingly, the Curve website reads, “Reimagining the card: Meet your next generation of payments after the trusted bankcard.”

Elsewhere on the teaser site, however, the company says this isn’t a card, next to a picture of what looks like a Curve-branded card. Confused? You’re not alone.

Meanwhile, Curve’s founding team is made up of three INSEAD MBA graduates: Israeli serial entrepreneur Shachar Bialick, Tom Foster-Carter, who was previously COO of children’s banking fintech company Osper, and Anna Mostyn Williams, who previously did marketing at Microsoft’s Xbox in the U.K.